


Serve and Receive

by EchoResonance



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Apologies, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-06
Updated: 2016-03-08
Packaged: 2018-05-25 00:16:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,877
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6172417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EchoResonance/pseuds/EchoResonance
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He’d served it too hard. He knew the instant his hand connected with the ball that it was all about to go horribly wrong, because it was too painful and the sound of the impact rang through the gym and brought everybody’s heads around in surprise. The ball shot straight past the spot he was supposed to be aiming at, the spot that Hinata was supposed to dive for, cleaving through the air straight at the boy. He didn’t have time to do more than blink.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. My Fingers Slipped

Kageyama slams his bedroom door closed and falls back against it, sliding slowly down until he’s sitting on the floor slumped against it. The strap of his bag slips from his shoulder, and the volleyball he’s been carrying rolls away from his limp grasp. His hands shake, and he notes dully that his right palm is still stinging. He raises it in front of his face, looking at skin that’s still a little pink, and tries to remember exactly why it hurts so much. There’s a lump in his throat, impossible to swallow around, and when he tries and fails he clenches his jaw and pulls his knees up to his chest, wrapping his arms around them.

_He’d served it too hard. He knew the instant his hand connected with the ball that it was all about to go horribly wrong, because it was too painful and the sound of the impact rang through the gym and brought everybody’s heads around in surprise. The ball shot straight past the spot he was supposed to be aiming at, the spot that Hinata was supposed to dive for, cleaving through the air straight at the boy. He didn’t have time to do more than blink._

Kageyama tries again to swallow past the ice cube in his throat and has no more success than before. With a shaky breath, he forces himself back to his feet just long enough to shuffle to his bed and fall face-down onto the comforter, rolling onto his back and staring up at the ceiling. He tries to block out the sounds ringing in his ears, the sound of the ball hitting Hinata square in the face, the sound of Hinata flying into the wall with a _crack_. The sound of Hinata falling to the gym floor while the others cried out and ran to his side.

_It was in slow motion as he watched the ball bounce away across the gym floor. It was in slow motion that Hinata fell, crumpling on the waxed wooden floor. It was in slow motion that the others sprinted forward—even Tsukishima—and he stood, frozen._

**_Get up_ ** _, he thought desperately as he stared at Hinata’s unmoving figure. **Get up you dumbass.**_

_With everybody crouched over him, Hinata looked even smaller than usual. Daichi shouted for Kiyoko, but she was already kneeling down with the first aid kit. Asahi and Nishinoya very carefully slid their hands beneath Hinata and just as carefully turned him onto his back._

He feels worse than when they fought over whether Hinata should try new spike techniques. That had been at least a little on both of them, though if he’s being honest he was still mostly the one at fault then for not being willing to help Hinata improve. This…this is all on him. Hinata got hurt because Kageyama lost control of his temper in a more spectacular way than ever.

_Hinata’s face was covered in blood, and it was pouring from both nostrils. Yamaguchi let out a small, mouse-like squeak at the sight and fainted right there, and Tsukishima just barely caught him. Kiyoko wasted no time in pulling out disinfectant wipes and a roll of gauze, quickly and effectively cleaning away what blood she could and then tilting his head to the side so that no more would drip into Hinata’s mouth. She tucked the gauze slightly beneath his cheek to keep him from bleeding on the floor anymore, then leaned back and patted Yachi on the head. The girl looked like she was about to pass out right along with Yamaguchi, but Kiyoko just patted her on the head and told her that Hinata would be fine, that it was just a broken nose._

_“What the HELL was that?!” Ukai demanded from Hinata’s side, whipping around to fix Kageyama with a death glare._

_The boy stared, wide-eyed and mouth hanging open, and didn’t respond. He couldn’t. His voice had deserted him, words had deserted him, everything but that cold, withering feeling in his chest as horror robbed him of every human response he was capable of._

He doesn’t remember why he did it. He remembers being angry, he remembers Hinata saying something that fanned the flames, but why? There’s nothing. He doesn’t have any idea why he was so upset, and that makes it worse. He hurt Hinata, and it clearly wasn’t over something important if he can’t even remember why.

_“Oi, Hinata!” Tanaka shouted, looking on the verge of tears._

_He reached out like he wanted to shake Hinata’s shoulder, but Ennoshita immediately caught his arms from behind, keeping his hyperactive concern in check before he made the situation worse. Nishinoya, kneeling beside Asahi, took a long, deep breath, then leaned down until he was inches away from Hinata’s face._

_“HINATA, WAKE UP!!!” he bellowed. Asahi jumped and yelped in shock, but before he could reprimand his friend, Daichi was behind him and pulling him back much like Ennoshita had done with Tanaka._

_The boy on the floor stirred, mumbling incoherently._

Kageyama grits his teeth and moves over enough to reach down and pick up the ball that had rolled over toward his bed. He’ll do what he always does when he’s stressed, when he can’t sleep for all the thoughts tumbling through his head. He tosses the ball above him, watching it spin as it gets smaller, then bigger again. He catches it, and tosses it again.

_Hinata’s eyes snapped open all at once, and he moved like he was going to jump to his feet. Suga hastily pushed past Tanaka and Ennoshita and set a firm hand on Hinata’s shoulder, holding him where he was._

_“Easy, Hinata,” he said calmly. “You took a pretty nasty hit.”_

_“Hit…?” Hinata mumbled._

_“Do you want to sit up?” Takeda said beside Suga._

_“Y-yeah…please…” Hinata said._

_“Slowly. Let us help,” said Takeda, and with Ukai he helped guide Hinata onto his knees._

_“How’s your head?” Ukai asked._

_“Hurts,” Hinata mumbled._

_He lifted a hand to his nose and then winced, pulling back and looking at the blood on his fingertips. Kiyoko noticed and took the gauze that had stuck to his cheek, holding it carefully under his nostrils until his fingers took over. She hadn’t wanted to risk plugging his nose with the gauze to completely top the bleeding while he’d been unconscious._

_“Can you tell me where you are?” asked Takeda._

Shrink. Grow. Catch. Toss.

_Hinata frowned at him._

_“I’m at the school gym,” he said, confused. “Wh—”_

_“What’s your full name?”_

_“Sensei, you know my—”_

_“What’s your full name?”_

_“Hinata Shoyou.”_

_Takeda took a long, slow breath, and blew it out through pursed lips._

_“Do you remember why your head hurts?”_

Shrink. Grow. Catch. Toss.

_“I was receiving for Kageyama…” Hinata said quietly, looking around. “He…the ball…”_

_The boy blinked, his expression darkening, and Kageyama felt his heart sink even further when those brown eyes found him standing several meters back, still exactly where he had been when he’d served the ball. The look in Hinata’s eyes made Kageyama’s blood run cold. He was pissed—of course he was. But he was more than that. He was confused, and hurt. Very, very hurt._

_“Kageyama,” he growled, shifting his weight._

_Guessing what he was going to do, Daichi’s hand lashed out to the shoulder that Suga wasn’t holding, latching a punishing grip to keep him sitting where he was._

_“H-Hinata—” Kageyama stuttered._

_“What the hell?!” he snarled, straining against the hands keeping him still. “You bastard, what was that for?”_

_“Hinata, hold on,” Suga said, alarmed. “You’re hurt, you need to calm down.”_

_“What were you thinking you jerk?!” Hinata said, disregarding Suga’s warning._

_“I think we’d all like to know that,” Ukai said coldly._

Shrink. Grow. Catch.

Kageyama hesitates, eyes on the ball cradled in his fingertips. It isn’t the one that he’d served at Hinata, but it might as well be. It feels painful to hold, too heavy, like it’s protesting him.

_“I—I didn’t—” he sputtered, and he took a step forward without conscious thought._

_He stopped when Hinata flinched. Fear flickered in the smaller boy’s eyes._

He sighs and tips the ball back to the floor. He sits up with his legs crossed and leans his elbows on his knees, head bowed.

_“I didn’t mean…” he said woodenly, tongue like lead from the look on Hinata’s face._

_“It sure looked like you meant it,” Daichi said, voice hard._

_“That didn’t sound like an accident, either,” Ukai said bluntly._

_“Didn’t feel like one,” Hinata added, eyes now on Kageyama’s feet._

_“N-no…” he said, shaking his head. “I didn’t—I would never—”_

_“What’s going on, Kageyama?” Suga said quietly. “You were in a pretty bad mood already, and you were yelling at Hinata before you two were even on the court.”_

_He swallowed._

He’s going to school early tomorrow. He doesn’t care that he’s suspended from practice; he has to go. He has to see Hinata, to talk to him. To apologize.

_The last thing Kageyama was aware of in the gym before he stalked out was Ukai helping Hinata slowly to his feet while the boy continued to stare at him._


	2. Who Died and Made You King?

Hinata isn’t at morning practice. Kageyama waits near the rack where Hinata always locks up his bike, because none of the other guys ever use it, but he never comes. At 7:04, Kageyama figures that Hinata either suspects he would wait for him, or he was running late and went straight to the gym. However, when Kageyama surreptitiously peeks in through one of the windows, Hinata is nowhere to be found, and he makes a hasty retreat before anybody else sees him.

Kageyama wonders if he should wait in Hinata’s class for him. The odds are high that the rest of the team is simply forcing him to take a break from practice while he’s hurt, but he’ll still be in class. He hesitates before going, though, knowing that he probably isn’t going to be received well—no pun intended. Hinata’s class is a space that Kageyama doesn’t enter, as much out of respect for the boy that he’s usually with at all other times of the day as it is out of nerves, and for Kageyama to waltz in there now with both of them wound up as tight as they are might not be a good idea. It’s going to put Hinata immediately on the defensive in front of his classmates, which is only going to rile him up more.

But he has to do _something_. If he lets this go too long it might fade away, and the two of them have always overcome their differences while playing, but that’s not the same thing as apologizing or showing remorse. It’s too indirect, and this is too big of a problem for Kageyama to believe that they can just gloss over it like when they changed their quick. An image of Hinata’s hurt, confused expression wavers in the back of Kageyama’s mind and his chest tightens.

This time is different. Very, very different from their fights before. However, the situation itself isn’t new; Kageyama is very familiar with what he’s feeling now. It’s the feeling of something slipping through his fingers like water, farther and farther away the harder he tries to grab on. He knows it too well, has known the fear of losing his teammates so slowly that he doesn’t realize how bad it’s become until they’re far from his grasp. Forcing people away without realizing it is his forte, after all.

He’s not prepared to face the consequences for it again. Not prepared for an old weight to settle on his head and shoulders once again, a title he hates and one he refuses to own any longer. He has to fix this. But _how_?

Kageyama is hovering in the hallway by Hinata’s classroom when he hears the first shout of surprise.

“Shouyo! What happened?!”

A tick starts beneath his right eye when he hears Hinata’s classmate call him by his first name, but he quickly quashes his irritation. He turns to see his teammate walking down the hall, smiling embarrassedly at the people quickly gathering around him. Kageyama’s stomach falls away at the sight. Hinata’s nose is mottled red and purple, and both of his eyes have dark shadows beneath them.

“Oh, this?” Hinata says, gesturing at his broken nose. “It’s nothing—just a stray serve during practice.”

“Stray serve?” one of his friends repeats incredulously. “It looks like you took a bull elephant to the face!”

Kageyama presses his lips into a thin line, but Hinata just laughs awkwardly and scratches the back of his neck, which surprises him. Kageyama would have expected Hinata to be telling everybody within earshot how much he hates him, how bad of a player he is, what an ass he is.

“Really, it’s nothing,” Hinata insists. “It looks worse than it is, believe me. Coach already reset it so it’ll heal straight, so it’ll be fine.”

That’s when he looks up, and his eyes meet Kageyama’s. Hinata’s entire demeanor shifts, leaving him cold and stony and utterly isolated from Kageyama, who feels the barrier between them rise like it’s a tall, iron wall. The others in the hallway notice the sudden tension and follow their friend’s gaze, finding the moody setter easily and quickly looking away from the dangerous expression he wears. Hinata mutters something to them that he doesn’t catch, and they file into the class together, each glancing briefly at Kageyama before disappearing into the room.

The warning bell rings.

Hinata remains where he is.

“H-hey…” Kageyama says lamely.

Hinata doesn’t respond. His fingers are trembling at his sides, though, and it looks like he’s biting the inside of his cheek. Kageyama presses on.

“About last night, I—I didn’t _mean_ to—to hit you,” he says. “Really, I wasn’t trying to, I just…”

“What did I do wrong?”

Kageyama blinks.

“W-what?” he mumbles.

“I don’t understand what I did to make you so upset,” he says. His voice is shaky. “I’ve seen you lose it before, but…What did I do?”

“Hinata, you didn’t—” Kageyama splutters. “It’s not like that, you didn’t—”

“Are my receives really that bad, still?” he continues, eyes on the floor. “I thought I was getting better at them, but if you’re that mad, maybe I need to work on them more. I know I’m not—”

“Hinata, you didn’t do anything,” Kageyama interrupts. “It wasn’t—it wasn’t your fault, I just—”

“How wasn’t it my fault?” Hinata demands. “You were mad at me all day—and the day before, and the day before. All we’ve been working on are receives, so what else—”

“Would you let me finish a single sentence, you dumbass?!” Kageyama snarls.

“Quit calling me dumbass!” Hinata says, bristling like an angry cat. “Maybe if you just _said_ what you were thinking instead of _breaking my face_ —”

“Idiot, I told you I didn’t mean to!” Kageyama shouts.

“How the hell do you serve like that without meaning it?! Your fingers _just slipped_ or—”

Hinata is interrupted by the classroom door being flung open. His teacher stands in the doorway, looking livid, and both boys automatically shrink back.

“Hinata Shouyo, get in the classroom right now,” she says sternly.

The redhead ducks his head and scurries inside, not even glancing over at Kageyama before he vanishes from sight.

“You too, Tobio,” she adds, narrowing her gaze at him. “Off to class with you.”

Kageyama bows his head and the teacher jerks the door shut, leaving him alone in the hallway. He straightens up, swallows thickly, and then shuffles toward his own classroom.


	3. Kiss and Make Up

“Shouldn’t we stop them?”

“Not unless it gets worse.”

“But…”

“This is just how they are.”

“Yeah, it’s how they usually work things out.”

“Huh…”

“Get back inside. Your serves are coming along really well.”

Kageyama hears his teammates talking to each other at the doorway of the gym, but only as if they’re speaking from the other end of a tunnel, and he doesn’t care about a word of it. He’s got Hinata pinned against the building, fists curled in his shirt and holding him just high enough that his toes barely touch the ground. The boy’s small fingers are curled around his wrists in a vice-like grip, and he’s glaring at Kageyama with all the ferocity of a caged wildcat, brown eyes blazing furiously.

They haven’t actually been fighting. Not yet, anyway. Hinata had just been turning away from the door—presumably after Daichi told him to go home because he was still hurt—when Kageyama arrived. When the boy saw Kageyama, he froze like a deer caught in the headlights, but knowing that it wouldn’t last long and that he is unlikely to catch Hinata if he gets a head start, Kageyama immediately pounced, catching two handfuls of his shirt and pinning him against the wall before he could escape. Of course it’s attracted the attention of the rest of the club, but this much is nothing most of them haven’t already seen, so everybody but Daichi went back inside after the initial commotion.

“I was…” Kageyama starts slowly. “I’ve been kinda…pissed…”

“When aren’t you?” Hinata says under his breath.

“Would you just let me talk for thirty seconds?” Kageyama growls, nose almost touching Hinata’s.

“Huh?!” the boy exclaims. “Why should I?!”

“You’re the one that asked what was wrong in the first place,” he says.

Hinata shrinks back against the wall at Kageyama’s glare, and the setter takes a deep breath and tries to relax his expression into something a little less threatening. From the way Hinata pales, he doesn’t think he succeeds. The boy still held in his grip swallows convulsively, and his blunt fingernails dig into Kageyama’s skin as he tightens his grip a little.

 _Where to begin?_ Kageyama wonders.

“Well?” Hinata says and Kageyama doesn’t continue. “Why?”

Whether he means _why did you hit me?_ or _why were you angry?_ doesn’t really matter, as they both come to the same end. So, Kageyama attempts to gather his thoughts for the most straightforward response he can. He’s never been particularly good at beating around the bush anyway.

“I’ve been mad because…because you’ve been doing stuff outside of practice,” he says grudgingly. “Hanging out with other people and doing other things. It’s been pissing me off.”

The decoy’s brow creases, a deep ‘V’ appearing between his eyebrows. His eyes spark angrily, and his nails dig harder into Kageyama’s forearms.

“What for?” Hinata demands furiously. “You can’t seriously expect me to do _nothing_ else!”

“That’s—”

“I give everything I have in practice every day!” he says, not seeming to hear Kageyama’s attempted interjection. “We work together outside of practice all the time, too! Why shouldn’t I take a couple hours a week to do _something_ else?”

“Idiot, that’s not the point!” Kageyama says, heat flashing across the back of his neck with his frustration. “You still _suck,_ you need more practice, and you’ve been wasting time just hanging out and not doing anyth—”

“My entire life is volleyball!” Hinata says, and Kageyama realizes with a sinking feeling in his stomach that there are tears in the boy’s eyes. “You all are everything to me—spending some time away doesn’t change that!”

Kageyama stares, wondering if the boy knows exactly what he’s saying, or how it sounds. Surely he doesn’t mean it the way Kageyama initially takes it, but it’s hard for the raven to keep himself in check when Hinata is talking so freely about things so easy to misunderstand.

“I don’t get why you’re so mad that I’m hanging out with my other friends sometimes,” Hinata says, gritting his teeth against the moisture threatening to overflow from his eyes. “You’re still my number one, so _why_?! Why are you acting like you think I don’t care about any of this?”

Kageyama’s noticed this before, that Hinata cries whenever his emotions run high whether he’s sad, happy, or angry, but it’s never bothered him this much to see it. Mostly, he thinks, because this time it’s entirely his fault that it’s happening. Everything has been his fault lately.

But Hinata has just said something incredibly important, and he probably doesn’t understand what it means to Kageyama in his frazzled and frustrated state, but the setter isn’t about to let it get swept under the rug. He tightens his fingers in the front of Hinata’s shirt, and his heart is pounding and his blood is roaring in his ears. He might be wrong. He is probably wrong. Hinata doesn’t mean what he’s saying, not the way Kageyama is taking it, and Kageyama will deal with the consequences later, but right now he wants something. Something to prove to himself that Hinata is just talking out his ass like always, or else to prove that he’s right. Something. Anything.

 _You’re still my number one_.

“Because,” Kageyama growls, nose almost touching Hinata’s. “You’re _my_ number one. You’re _mine_ first, before anyone else’s.”

Their teeth knock together when Kageyama lurches forward, but he at least manages to tilt his head in time to avoid their noses crashing into each other. A startled noise leaves the redhead he has pinned against the wall, and the hands around his forearms slacken slightly, and Kageyama’s bracing himself for the shove he knows is coming even as he recovers from the clash of teeth and slants his mouth more gracefully across Hinata’s. The push doesn’t come, nor does the protest.

Hinata’s lips are warm and dry, and they scratch against Kageyama’s a little when they push back against him, but the setter barely notices, because all he’s aware of is the answer that the decoy is giving his silent question. A low noise escapes his throat and his hands leave Hinata’s shirt, dropping him back onto his feet so that one can slide around his waist and the other can knot itself into the mess of orange curls at the base of his head. Kageyama pulls Hinata flush against him, using his grip on the boy’s hair to tilt his head up for a better angle. For a change, Hinata follows his direction easily, his own hands now catching the front of Kageyama’s shirt for the sake of something to hold on to.

When he leans back, Kageyama’s breathing is a little heavy, and Hinata’s chest is moving more rapidly than normal against his. The smaller boy’s eyes are hazy, and his mouth is still slightly parted, and there’s a bead of blood on his lower lip where their teeth clashed before but he doesn’t seem to notice or mind.

“Are you gonna run off if I let you go?” Kageyama says, startled by the roughness of his own voice.

He’s fully aware that Hinata won’t tell him if he is planning on making a run for it, but also very aware that Hinata is a terrible liar. He also doesn’t believe that Hinata is going to leave him in the dust after what’s just happened.

“Depends,” the decoy mumbles, and Kageyama strongly suspects that he’s being quiet on purpose to avoid sounding as husky as him.

“On what?”

“Whether you yell at me or not.”

“Dumbass, am I yelling?”

“No, but you’re calling me dumbass again, Bakageyama,” Hinata snaps.

Kageyama sighs, closing his eyes and taking a long, slow breath that he blows out through pursed lips. He allows his hands to fall away from Hinata, who shuffles back maybe a meter and no further.

“I kind of…” Kageyama says awkwardly. “I just…felt like you were neglecting m—neglecting the team. Not practicing as much as you could’ve been.”

Hinata frowns shrewdly at him.

“So…when you say you’re mad about me spending time with other friends…” the smaller boy says. Kageyama looks away again. “You…were you _jealous_?”

Kageyama goes as stiff as a board, heat flashing across his cheeks.

“I-idiot, that’s—” he splutters indignantly. “I told you—I was pissed because—because you were wasting so much time!”

“You _were_!” Hinata exclaims, and the way his face lights up makes Kageyama’s heart thud painfully in his chest. “You were mad because I wasn’t spending time with _you_!”

“Sh-shut up you—you dumbass,” Kageyama says.

“If that was all, you could’ve just _said_ so instead of being a jerk about it,” Hinata says. “I can’t believe you have to break my nose before you’re ready to say any of that.”

“H-hey, I told you,” Kageyama says frantically. “I didn’t mean—I was being stupid, I swear I really wasn’t trying to—”

He cuts himself off when he sees the corners of Hinata’s lips twitching furiously, and a vein starts throbbing in Kageyama’s temple. The decoy isn’t even angry; he’s just trying to rile him up. He starts forward and, sensing danger, Hinata’s amusement immediately falls away.

“H-hey…” Hinata says warily, backing up towards the door. “You wouldn’t hit a person with an injury, would you?”

“Since when do you count as a person?” Kageyama growls, still advancing.

His predatory prowl is interrupted when a voice speaks up from behind Hinata, and though the tone is light enough, they are both well aware of the warning lying underneath it.

“I know Tanaka told you two to kiss and make up,” says a voice from the doorway, startling them both and causing them to spring away. “But I don’t think he was actually expecting you to take him so literally.”

Kageyama figures that his face is almost the same color as Hinata’s flaming hair—it certainly feels like it’s on fire—and he resolutely avoids looking at the decoy in favor of the bit of wall above the captain’s right shoulder. His lips are burning and he can feel his pulse in the palms of his hands where they were just touching the boy at his side. He wonders if Hinata feels just as messed up.

“I’m glad you two have cleared things up,” Daichi says with a small smile.

The smaller boy grins at his savior.

“But,” the captain continues sternly, and both Hinata and Kageyama’s hopes fall. “Hinata, you’re still suspended until your nose is better, and Kageyama, you’ve been suspended for the rest of the week for your behavior. I have no intention of withdrawing either suspension.”

“B-but _Captain_!” Hinata protests. Daichi’s expression softens a little bit.

“Hinata, it’s for your own good,” he says. He glances at Kageyama. “And besides, it’s not like you two aren’t going to practice on your own time anyway. We know you too well to believe you’ll actually take a break.”

With that, he shoos them away and ducks back into the gym, closing the door behind him.

“Man, this sucks,” Hinata groans as they walk towards the bike rack. “I was sure they’d let me back in if I harassed them enough.”

“You’re too optimistic,” Kageyama says with a shake of his head.

“You just give up too easy,” Hinata says in reply.

They stop when they reach the bike rack, hesitating in awkward silence. They usually walk together for several blocks on the way home before they branch off, and neither of them is sure how to do that with the sudden shift in atmosphere between them. Kageyama scuffs his heel against the ground, hands in his pockets and eyes on his shoes. He doesn’t know what he’s waiting for, if anything.

“Kageyama?”

“Mm?”

He glances up. Hinata’s eyes are already on him, oddly calm despite the faint blush dusting his cheeks, and when Kageyama meets his gaze he reaches out with one hand. He pinches Kageyama’s shirt between his thumb and forefinger and tugs cautiously, his expression screwed up in a look of determination that’s quite at odds with the simple request he’s making. Both relieved and embarrassed, Kageyama obliges and steps closer, settling his hands on Hinata’s hips only after the boy has slid his own arms around his neck.

Their breaths mingle on their lips, which aren’t quite touching just yet. Kageyama leans his forehead against Hinata’s, noting a little irately that his neck is already sore from having to lean down to accommodate the shorter boy. The look in Hinata’s eyes makes up for the slight discomfort though, a shy look both asking and granting permission, and his eyes are unusually soft. The place where his lip split has already stopped bleeding, and at some point between then and now he’s licked away the blood that was welling up.

“Something you wanna say?” Kageyama wonders.

Hinata shrugs and tightens his arms around Kageyama’s shoulders, tilting his head just a little so that their lips are just barely brushing.

“You first,” he whispers the challenge.

Instead of answering Kageyama presses forward, closing his mouth over Hinata’s and closing his eyes against the evening sunlight. Hinata slides his fingers into his hair, nails scraping against his scalp as he moves his lips in earnest, urging the kiss on. Kageyama catches Hinata’s lower lip gently between his teeth and tugs, taking pride in the tiny gasp the other lets slip when his lip snaps back into place.

They’ll talk about it eventually. Just…not quite yet.


End file.
